"there is a swelling storm and i'm caught up in the middle of it all."

★・・・・・・★

The three girls were in El's bedroom. The song Angel by Madonna was played. El was sitting on her bed, looking through a magazine with Amber sitting in front of her, admiring her girlfriend. Max had a hairbrush in her hand, singing and dancing along to the song. Max was really singing for Amber.

"You must be an angel," Max started singing while pointing at Amber. "I can see it in your eyes. Full of wonder and surprise."

El turned to a picture of Ralph Macchio in the magazine. Amber looked over and saw the picture. Amber had a soft spot for the boy who she didn't know but it didn't matter.

"Oh, you found Ralph Macchio. Amber is obsessed with him. She won't shut up," Max said.

"Macchio?" El questioned.

"Yeah, he's the Karate Kid," Max said as she mimicked a karate move.

"He's so hot, right?" Amber said, slightly teasing her girlfriend. "I bet he's an amazing kisser too."

"Amber!" Max said while she slightly pushed her.

"Hey, uh... is Mike a good kisser?" Max asked.

"I don't know," El said while slightly rolling her eyes. "He's my first boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend," Max corrected her.

El seemed down like she regretted breaking up with Mike.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Okay?" Amber said as she scooted closer to El. "He'll come crawling back to you in to time, begging for forgiveness."

"Yeah, I guarantee you, he's like, totally wallowing in self-pity and misery right now," Max said, trying to lighten up the mood. "He's like, 'Oh, I hope she takes me back.'"

Amber found it slightly funny and so did El.

"God, what I wouldn't give to see his stupid face," Max said.

El had an idea. She looked down with a slight smirk.

"What is it?" Max asked.

El told them what she was thinking as they both agreed to the idea. Amber turned the radio on to static and Max found a blindfold for El and gave it to her. Amber sat on the bed while El started putting on the blindfold.

Max sat down next to Amber and said, "Is this really gonna work?" El nodded. "Holy shit, this is insane."

"Max," Amber said.

"Yeah, quiet. I'm sorry," she said softly.

Amber held Max's hand as El went into the void. A couple of seconds later, El said, "I see them," so Amber and Max went down on the floor with El, still holding hands.

"What are they doing?" Max asked.

"Eating," she said.

A minute later, El spoke something again.

"They say we are species."

"What?" Max said.

"'Emotion, not logic.'"

"What?" Amber asked, annoyed.

A couple more minutes and El ripped the blindfold off her eyes carefully.

"What, what happened?" Max asked El. All she did was start laughing.

"What... what? What happened?" Max continued asking as they all fell the the floor laughing.

They got up because they heard a car outside that was most likely Hopper's. Amber got some more magazines for the three of them to read. El lay on the right of Max and Amber lay on the left.

Amber and Max started fighting with their feet but then stopped when the door busted open.

"Do you knock? Jeez!" Max asked.

"Yeah! Jeez!" El repeated Max's words.

"Oh, hey," Hopper said, embarrassed.

"Hey, Hopper," Amber said as he waved slightly at her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I thought that, uh-"

"Mike's not here," Max stated the obvious.

"Amber and Max wanted to have... a sleepover," El said. "Is that... okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your parents know about it?"

"Yup," Max and Amber both said.

"Uh, yeah, it's cool. Yeah. That's- that's really cool," Hopper said as they awkwardly stood there for a couple of seconds.

"Did you need something?" Max asked.

"No, no. Uh, I'll leave. I'll just let you... I'll leave you..." Hopper said as he closed the door.

Amber got up and grabbed a board, sticky notes, an empty coke bottle, and a marker and laid them all on the bed. She put the sticky notes in a circle on the board and wrote names on them. She put the empty bottle in the middle and the two others came onto the bed.

"What are you doing?" El asked.

"Well, what I want to do is spin the bottle but with names. When you spin the bottle, it'll land on someone's name. Then you have to spy on them. Is that alright?" Amber explained as they nodded.

"Holy shit. I can't believe we're doing this," Max said. "Ready?"

"Ready," El replied.

El took the bottle and spun it. It landed on Mike's dad, Mr. Wheeler.

"Mr. Wheeler," the three girls said.

"Ugh. Boring," Max said.

"Spin again," Max advised.
"Against the rules?" El asked.

"We make our own rules," Amber said while El chuckled. It landed on Billy.

"Billy," they all said as they decided he was good enough.

Max grabbed the radio and turned the stations so it was static and got the blindfold while saying, "Okay, look, I should just warn you, if he's with a girl or doing something gross, just get out of there right away before you're scarred for life."

"Max-" El tried.

"No, I'm just saying, I'm serious. He's really gross."
"Max!"

"Okay, shutting up now."

El put the blindfold on as Max leaned into Amber. Amber put her arm on Max's back so she wouldn't fall off of the bed.

"I found him," El said.

"What's he doing?" Max asked.

"I don't know," El responded. "He's... on the floor... talking to someone."

El ripped the blindfold off of her head, shaking at what she might've saw. Amber got closer to El and hugged her so she felt safe.

"What is it?" Max asked. "What happened?"

El just looked at her, quite scared.

-

They went over to Max's to sleep. They woke up, got dressed, and went to Billy's house.

"It's gonna start pouring soon," Max said as they walked. "We should be at the mall or, like, watching a movie or something."

"You don't believe me?" El asked.

"I believe you saw some totally weird stuff, totally..." Max said.

Their voices got distant as Amber stood there. She took her hands out of the pocket in her pants and saw the mist. She wanted to scream and freak out. She tried her best to stay calm though.

"Amber?" Max said. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she lied. "Fine."

"Come on," she grabbed her girlfriend's hand. "We're here."

They went inside and went directly into Billy's room.

"Why do I get the feeling that we're gonna find all kinds of wrong in here?" Max asked.

"Because it's Billy," Amber commented.

Max opened a drawer that had girls half-naked in magazines. "Ugh! Gag me with a spoon."

They went into the bathroom and turned the light on. Amber looked over at the bathtub. Ice. It was filled with ice. Amber didn't like this. She had a terrible feeling about it.

"Guys?" El said quietly.

Max came over and picked up a bag of ice.
"Ice. It's just ice. It's probably for his muscles or something. He works out like a maniac."

Amber turned around, then El did. The cabinet. There was blood on the knob. Amber walked towards the cabinet and opened it. El picked up the garbage can and looked inside it.

"El, what is it?" Max asked.

El picked up a lifeguard bag. She set it down and then grabbed the other thing in there.

A lifeguard whistle. With blood on it.

Amber couldn't take it anymore. She walked out of there as fast as she could without throwing up. She got outside and threw up. She was scared. It's been 6 months. It can't be back. It can't be.

But... after the Mind Flayer died and the gate closed, Amber's powers were gone. They didn't come back for 6 months. But... now all of a sudden, they're back? Something isn't right. At all.

-

The girls went to the pool to see if they could return the lifeguard bag. They went to the front desk to see if the older teens would answer their questions.

"Excuse me," Max said.

"No one in the water until 30 minutes after the last strike. And don't try and argue with me. You wanna get electrocuted, go climb a tree," the guy said in a monotone voice.

"Yeah, we don't care," she said. "We're not here to swim. Or get electrocuted."

"We found this," El said while getting the bag. The teens just looked at it.

"Does that belong to anybody here?" Amber asked.

"Oh, yeah. That's Heather's. I'll get it back to her," the guy said but he didn't make any effort to take it.

"We could give it back to her," El suggested.

"You could. 'Cept she's not here. Bailed on me today."

They all looked at each other. Was she sick? Or something else?

"What is this?" he asked. "You girls want an award or something?"

"No. We're just... Good Samaritans," Max replied.

El looked back at the board behind them and walked towards it. She saw Heather's picture. Max and Amber realized what she was looking at.

"Heather," Amber said. "Do you think you can find her?"

El ripped the picture off the board and they went into the girls locker room. Max turned the showers on and Amber grabbed a pair of goggles and duck tape. Amber put the tape on the goggles so El couldn't see. El set the picture in front of her.

Amber sat down on the floor close to the bench where Max sat. Max put her hand on Amber's shoulder and Amber put her hand on Max's.

"What do you see?" Max asked.

"A door," El said. "A red door."

A couple of minutes later, El shoved the goggles off of her head and started panting.

"What happened?" Amber asked. She was scared. Not for herself, but for El. "El!"

Amber scooted over and hugged El tightly like she did last night. After they calmed El down, it had gotten darker. They decided to find a house with a red door.

-

"Is this it?" Max asked as El shook her head yes.

They're got to the steps and El opened the door with her powers. They walked inside and took off their hoods from their rain coats. They walked down a hall filled with pictures as Max said, "This is her house."

"What?" El asked.

"Heather's house."

Then they heard an older woman laughing. They walked towards the laughing and came into a dining room. Billy and Heather's mom and dad were there, eating.

"It was that cute, huh?" Amber heard Billy say.

"He's so funny," Heather's mom laughed.

The three girls caught the adult's attention as Billy said, "Max."

"We didn't mean to... barge in. We tried to knock, but... maybe you didn't hear us over the storm," Max said.

"I'm sorry, who is this dripping all over my living room right now?" Tom asked.

"I'm sorry. Janet, Tom, this... is my sister Maxine."

"Oh!" Janet said.

"What on Earth are you doing here?" Billy asked as he came over to the three girls. "Is something wrong?"

"We just wanted to make sure everything was okay," Max said.

"Okay? Why wouldn't it be okay?" Billy asked.

"Where is she?" Amber said. She wanted to figure out if Heather was okay.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Where is who?"

"Well, they're a little burnt, I'm sorry-" Heather apologized as she came out of the kitchen with a tray of cookies.

"Heather! This is my sister, Maxine," Billy said, once again. Amber didn't like him saying "Maxine". She wanted him to say Max because she was more comfortable with that.

"And I'm sorry, I did not quite catch your name," Billy said to El with his eyes focused on Amber.

"El," she said with a hint of anger in her voice.

"El. Now, what is it you were saying, Amber?" he asked as he turned back to her. "You were looking for somebody?"

Amber couldn't put it together. El said something was wrong with her but she looked fine. Amber couldn't spit out words so Max covered for her girlfriend by saying, "We saw your manager. At the pool. He said you guys didn't come in to work today, so we got worried."

"Heather wasn't feeling so hot today, so we thought we'd take the day off to nurse her back to health. But you're feeling just fine right now, aren't you, Heather?"

"I'm feeling so much better," Heather said as Billy looked at Amber. "Do you girls want a cookie? They're fresh out of the oven."

"No thanks. Uh, we'll be going now," Max said as she took Amber's hand in hers and walked back outside to go to Max's.

Max picked up her bike and El got on the back of her's as Amber picked up her bike and looked back at Billy.

They rode off and Amber felt the same tingly feeling. The same one she felt the day at the movies.

He must be back.